News Archives for August 2012

We are already into August, yet the PlanetSide 2 closed beta is not here. Sony Online Entertainment president John Smedley said the beta would be here on Monday or Tuesday "barring any unforseen circumstances," and it looks like something happened. Smedley took to Twitter to announce the PlanetSide 2 beta will arrive this Friday or next Monday. The beta is going through a bit more polishing to ensure the "stuff" is "awesome." The development team also needs to make sure everything works with the huge amount of people joining, so that should mean the closed beta will be nice and stable. We will just have to see once it arrives, but hopefully everything goes off without a hitch. If the beta does arrive on Friday, I imagine anyone with access will immediately clear their weekend schedule.

Earlier this year Sony closed down Zipper Interactive, the studio responsible for the stellar SOCOM games. The PlayStation 2 titles were some of the must-have titles for the system, and while the PS3 ones were not quite that way, they were still terrific games in their own right. The closure of the studio seemed to say the SOCOM franchise was over, but that does not appear to be the case. Sony announced it still has plans for the SOCOM franchise, as Sony's president of worldwide studios Shuhei Yoshida said the company never retires a franchise. Sony does like to revive franchises after periods of inactivity, like with the upcoming Sly Cooper game, so it is probably just a matter of time before we hear about a new SOCOM game. It may be a little different having another studio at the helm, but it is certainly not unheard of in the world of video games. There may even be a SOCOM HD collection before long too, as Yoshida said some gamers never experienced the first two games. So, a possible SOCOM HD collection and maybe even a new game later on? Sign me up!

Ever wanted to indulge in an SSD but didn't have the budget? Crucial's latest offering is targeted at cash-strapped PC enthusiasts: the v4 SSDs promise not to break your lean bank account with prices starting at $50. The bargain-priced drives are understandably less nimble on their feet compared to their m4 counterparts, but with maximum read and write speeds of 230 MB/s and 190 MB/s respectively, the v4s make for a faster alternative than traditional hard disks. The v4 comes in four variants: 32GB ($50), 64GB ($70), 128GB ($100) and 256GB ($190). For budget-conscious folks still holding out on purchasing their very first SSD, Crucial's v4 SSD offers decent performance for less.

In the mobile computing arena we have a chance to check out the Google Nexus 7 tablet that has been garnering a lot of press attention lately. We also have a review covering the Lenovo ThinkPad X230 notebook if you're in the market for something a bit more powerful. Neoseeker has posted up a review on the Cooler Master TPC-812 CPU cooler and our roundup also includes a look at the Gigabyte Z77X-UD5H WiFi motherboard along with an evaluation of the new Dawn DX11 demo.

As with many technologies, there is an ongoing battle with photovoltaics between cost and quality. The most efficient technologies at the moment are also the hardest to produce and most expensive to acquire materials for. Other, far cheaper technologies are being developed but are not as efficient, yet. Now researchers at the University of Toronto and King Abdullah University of Science & technology have set a new efficiency record for one of these cheaper technologies.

Quantum dots are nanoparticles that are sometimes called designer atoms. By carefully constructing them, these particles can be given certain properties, including the frequencies of light they react to. Despite being such small and precise structures though, colloidal quantum dots (CQD) can be mass produced quite cheaply, almost like ink and paint. Previous CQD films for solar panels though have had limited performance due to electron traps on their surfaces, but the researchers removed these by exposing the particles to chlorine atoms just after being synthesized.

By patching the surface impurities that were trapping electrons and energy, the researchers' QCD film achieved 7% efficiency, more than a third better than the previous record. This record may not stand for long though as this research points to more ways to improve the efficiency of these cheap to produce solar cells.

Take-Two released its financial results from the last quarter and things were not that great. The company lost $110.8 million between March and June of this year due to the less than stellar sales numbers of Spec Ops: The Line and Max Payne 3. Net revenue for Take-Two was down to $226.1 million, was is a far cry from the $334.4 million over the same time last year. However, it is not all doom and gloom as Take-Two announced Grand Theft Auto V is making "substantial progress." No other information on the upcoming title was released, so we are still waiting on a release date and platforms. It would be a good idea to peg the platforms as PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360, and maybe even the Wii U if a good control scheme is in place for the GamePad. Either way, there is some good news mixed with the bad for Take-Two and GTA V.

Though it has been several years at this point, I can still remember the lesson on entropy in my high school chemistry class. Entropy, often associated with disorder and lost energy, is an important thing when trying to determine if some event will occur because, by the laws of thermodynamics, entropy must never decrease when something to happens. An example of energy lost as entropy would be the movement of the air particles displaced as I type this on my keyboard. The particles take that energy and bounce off each other in a chaotic pattern and it will never be possible to harvest all of that energy again.

Despite this tendency towards an increase of chaos though, researchers at the University of Michigan have found a way to actually use entropy to create well-ordered structures. The researchers were studying the behaviors of different nanoparticle shapes and discovered that he chaotic motion of these particles can be used to fit them together into a crystal-like structure. The key is to squeeze the particles together essentially. Throw enough dice into a rectangular box and start shaking it. Eventually the shaking will cause the dice to align their faces and form an ordered structure, despite the chaotic motion from the shaking.

Like those dice though, these particles do not bond with each other. If they did the entropy of the system would have to decrease, which the laws of thermodynamics forbid. This spontaneous structure formation is still useful though, as it allows for an efficient way to make nanostructures by controlling the shape of the nanoparticles creating it.

Steam has a new client update that just released yesterday, and once it finishes installing you will be asked to accept a new Subscriber Agreement. If you happen to read the fine print, you will see there is a new provision in it that blocks class action lawsuits. Other companies have done the same recently, so it is not too much of a surprise for Valve to follow suit. Valve is removing the ability to join a class action lawsuit, but it is still allowing for individuals to take action. Any dispute that cannot be resolved between Valve and a customer, like over prices, can go to small claims court or arbitration. Valve will even reimburse the customer's arbitration fees regardless of outcome, unless the case is "frivolous or the costs unreasonable." Basically Valve wants to protect itself and its users from meaningless class action lawsuits, especially when those can take years to resolve and offer a minimal payout.

The developers behind the credit card-sized Raspberry Pi computer have announced that they are hard at work porting Android Ice Cream Sandwich to the device. The team has reported "great progress," and the graphics and video are already working. The tiny devices are powered by a 700MHz ARM processor and will allow users to enjoy plenty of Android features without needing bigger, more expensive systems.

Day Z is a zombie themed game mod for the game Arma II: Combined Operations. The game is still in the Alpha stage, but the developers have announced that the game is nearing 1 million unique players. The game is free and shows that developers of games, like those behind Arma II, can benefit from including mod tools in their games. The mod has helped to sell thousands of additional copies of the game and even put Arma II at the top of the Steam Summer Sale leader board, despite being on sale for only 20% off for much of the sale. The developers behind Day Z are rumored to be working on a standalone game that could bring them financial success, much like famous game mods like Counter-Strike in the past.

The weekend is fast approaching, which means our End of Nations beta key giveaway is nearing its end. Overclockers Club received 90 keys from NVIDIA to give out for the beta, which begins next Friday, August 10 and ends on August 12. We still have plenty of spots available for you to try and win a key, and it really could not be easier. All you need to do is post in our contest entry thread for a chance to win a key. There is no minimum post count or join date to enter, but you will receive an additional entry for every full year you have been a member at OCC. That really is all there is to it, so head over to the forums and join the End of Nations beta key giveaway! The contest ends this Saturday, August 4, at 10pm EDT!

An important issue to overcome for renewable energy sources like solar and wind power is how to store any excess energy they produce. Large-scale power storage systems are still in development and even if they existed now, the problem of getting that power where it needs to be will exist, as it currently does with other power sources. Researchers at Stanford University and Pennsylvania State University have a possible solution in mind which not only will solve the issue of energy storage, but do so cleanly, efficiently, and overcome some transportation issues.

Methanogens are special microbes that take carbon dioxide directly from the air and convert it to methane, using an electric current. In 2009, testing with these organisms achieved 80% efficiency in converting electricity to methane. What the researchers propose, after some hurdles are overcome, is to use bioreactors containing methanogen colonies to produce methane directly from the atmosphere and the power from renewable power sources, or other carbon neutral sources. The methane can then be transported using the same methods to move natural gas we have now and only burned when needed.

As the CO2 used to create the methane would come from the atmosphere, when the methane is burned and releases CO2, the net impact on the atmosphere is no new CO2 was added. However this may not just be used to create methane for fuel purposes. The hydrocarbon could also be used to produce other chemicals that currently require fossil resources, such as some plastics and gasoline.

We've reviewed cases from Sentey here at OCC before and today our roundup includes a new offering from the South American company in the form of the Sentey Extreme Division GS-6000 II Optimus mid-tower chassis. We also picked up a review of the mid-range ASUS P9X79 Pro X79 motherboard along with a preview of the Thortech Thunderbolt 1200 Watt PSU and more, so be sure to check out all of today's articles by following the links posted below.

Gamers tired of playing hero are in for a treat in Resident Evil 6 - as the undead will now be playable zombies, ready to gnaw on the brains of Leon S. Kennedy and Chris Redfield, among others. The 'Agent Hunt' feature becomes available the moment a level has been completed in story mode, enabling a single zombie player to let loose against multiple enemies over the Internet. Other players keen to ruin your murderous streak can simply crash your zombie party by controlling nearby monsters, too. While the concept of controlling zombies isn't new (Valve's awesome Left4Dead series comes to mind), it will be refreshing to see just how Capcom's role reversal gambit will play out in Resident Evil 6.

The Book of Unwritten Tales warmed the hearts of many UK adventure gamers last year, and this time North American players can now join in on the point-and-click fun. The well-received epic harkens back to the best elements of past adventure games, weaving a humorous saga about an artifact with enough power to determine the fate of the world. The enjoyable puzzles are also a highlight, which could be rationally solved with a dose of common sense. Great adventure games rarely make their way into mainstream gaming nowadays, but Book of Unwritten Tales is a solidly entertaining romp that's available for $19.99 either on Steam or your nearest games retailer.

There are several examples in nature of how a surface can determine important properties of something. The pads on a gecko's feet have special hairs that allow them to cling to any surface and lotus leafs have a structure to repel water. Recreating these features on other materials is not easy to do because the fabrication methods are often complex or are limited in area they can operate on. Researchers at MIT however found a way to precisely wrinkle materials in just a few steps.

The researchers found they could bond the material to a stretched substrate using initiated chemical vapor deposition (iCVD) and then release the stretched material to create the wrinkles. By releasing the stress of the substrate in one direction before the other, the researchers found it is possible to design the angle, size, and spacing of the wrinkles with great accuracy. This accuracy is so great in fact that a material's thickness and stiffness could be determined by measuring the wrinkles.

Such control over the surface of a material, the researchers are able to make surfaces adhesive at will or change their wettability, making them hydrophobic or hydrophilic. This could also be used for creating lab-on-a-chip devices which require precise and small channels to manipulate and measure molecules.

There has been an incredible shift recently from subscription-based MMOs to free-to-play titles, with some major games counted among them. PlanetSide 2, Age of Conan, EverQuest, and most recently Star Wars: The Old Republic are all F2P or soon will be (plus plenty more too numerous to fit), with few subscription-only MMOs still operating. ArenaNet global brand manager Chris Lye believes the subscription fees do not fit MMOs in many cases. He says developers need to look long and hard at susbcription fees to see if it will help the game be successful, and it does not often fit. Lye says there could be a game where a subscription works, but he has not heard of one yet. World of Warcraft is still making money as a subscription-based MMO, however Lye sees that as one of the few exceptions.

ArenaNet's upcoming Guild Wars 2 has no monthly subscription, but it will require a one-time purchase just like the first game. It arrives on the PC on August 28.

Since the first robots were made to pick up delicate objects, we have been trying to give them a sense of touch. Touch is an important sense for humans not only to prevent us from breaking objects, but also hurting ourselves. Replicating it with technology has been proving difficult but researchers at Seoul National University, as reported by New Scientist, have devised a hairy solution, literally.

The researchers realized that there are examples in the human body of cells interlocking to translate force into an electrical signal nerves can interpret. This led them to developing polymer nanohairs that are woven together such that they bend and twist against each other. Contact between the hairs creates an electric current, which is interpreted as a change in pressure, shear, or torsion and displayed on a computer in real-time.

This synthetic skin approach is actually more sensitive than our own skin as it detected the jumping motion of a water droplet on a hydrophobic plate. Having already survived over 10,000 test cycles as well, the researchers believe this skin could one day be used on robots and even prosthetic limbs.

Good great news, everyone! The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: Dawnguard is now available on the PC! Bethesda made the announcement today as QuakeCon 2012 kicked off, so now PC users will finally be able to check out the first DLC for Skyrim. Will you decide to become a Vampire Lord and help Harkon blot out the sun? Or will you join the Dawnguard and stop Harkon's mad scheme? The choice will be yours, and I imagine everyone will take at least two characters through to see the different outcomes. Dawnguard also adds in new locations, weapons, items, and side quests, plus there is a vampire and werewolf perk tree at last. Players who are already a werewolf will have to decide if becoming a Vampire Lord is worth it, but you may want to have a save handy if you prefer being a werewolf. The DLC also adds an NPC who will change your appearance, which is useful if you are unhappy with your character's face or hair. Race and gender cannot be changed, however.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: Dawnguard will set you back $19.99 on Steam. PlayStation 3 users will receive the DLC at a later date once Bethesda is certain the performance is up to par.

The brain is an amazing organ as it retains a level of plasticity for so long. This is what allows stroke patients, for example, to regain the abilities that had been controlled by now-damaged areas of the brain. Researchers at the University of Texas, Dallas have found a way to accelerate plasticity in rats and hope it can be applied to humans in the future.

The researchers found that when they stimulated the vagus nerve within the rats and paired it with movements of the forearm, the rats' brains would reorganize in response. Those that did not receive the stimulation, but just the movement treatment, saw no reorganization during the five day period.

The movements the rats underwent were similar to those used when rehabilitating stroke patients, which is why the researchers hope this could be used to improve the patients' treatments. This could reach beyond stroke victims though as many other disorders could be treated by reorganizing the brain, including schizophrenia, autism, dyslexia and potentially Alzheimer's. If this cannot be used to treat the patients though, this research could lead to a better understanding of the conditions, and different treatments in the future.

Earlier this year we celebrated the 20th anniversary of Wolfenstein 3D being released. That was a day of recollection for me as I remembered playing that game when I was probably too young for it. If I was too young for Wolfenstein 3D though, then I was probably also too young for Rise of the Triad (ROTT), with its over-the-top weapons and violence. That did not stop me from playing though and experiencing the Flamewall, Drunk Missile, or God Mode, and soon we will be able to play it anew.

Apogee has announced that ROTT is being remade with Unreal Engine 3 by Interceptor Entertainment. Apogee is the original publisher of ROTT and Joe Siegler, the original level designer, currently works for Interceptor, so we can trust this will be as true to the original as possible, when it comes to gameplay.

The new ROTT will be a PC exclusive and available on Steam, which will enable achievements and Steamworks for sharing mods of the game, like we have for Skyrim. It also will support multiplayer and feature a heavy metal version of the original soundtrack.

Ubisoft has some pretty big plans for Assassin's Creed III. Huge battles between the Continental Army and British Army, varied landscapes to explore on the Frontier, recreations of Boston and New York, oh, and a protagonist that is part Native American. Needless to say, AC3 is shaping up to be the best entry in the series yet, but how does the game look? There is a new game engine powering it all, and Ubisoft released a trailer showing off the AnvilNext engine. I heavily advise you to prop your jaw against something because it will drop while watching the trailer below. We get to see just how large the battles can be, what the different parts of the Frontier will look like (I dig the snowy mountains), and the cities of Boston and New York look like something straight out of a painting. Throw in some ship warfare and those sweet assassin moves Connor can employ, and I say this fall will be a good time for video games.

Valve has announced the next game that will have items based on it included in Team Fortress 2, and that game is Sleeping Dogs. The new items can be obtained, likely in genuine quality, by purchasing Sleeping Dogs before August 14, and the game is currently 10% off. The bundle can also be purchased in the Mann Co. Store for $19.99 and will also drop in game. Every class gets a piece of the action, with some items available to all nine. A new King of the Hill map, Kong King, will also be released soon.

Mass Effect 3 will soon be receiving a new single player DLC in the form of Leviathan. This DLC seeks to explore the origin of the Reapers, the massive sentient machines bent on destroying or subjugating all life, and it is up to Shepard to find "the most closely guarded secret in the galaxy." The Reapers are also looking for this Leviathan and wish to silence it forever, so Shepard and the crew of the Normandy must find it first. The events of the Leviathan DLC take place during the story of Mass Effect 3, so you may need to get a new character going. The DLC takes players to the darkest corners of the galaxy while unraveling the mystery behind the Leviathan, which is said to be capable of destroying Reapers. You will be able to explore uncharted worlds, new parts of the Citadel, meet new characters, and unlock a couple of weapons along the way.

The Leviathan DLC for Mass Effect 3 will arrive later this summer for $10. It will be available on the PC, PS3, and 360. There is also a new Firefight single player weapons pack arriving on August 7, which adds two powerful new weapons and five bonus weapons to the campaign.

Linux users will soon have access to Steam, as Valve is working tirelessly to get its service running smoothly on the open source OS. The first game that will be available is Left 4 Dead 2, and recently some interesting information was posted on the Valve Linux Blog. The engineers at Valve have managed to get the Linux version of Left 4 Dead 2 running faster than the Windows version using the exact same hardware. When the studio first started out, L4D2 only managed a measly 6 FPS in Linux. Now, it can reach 315 FPS on an Intel Core i7 3930K, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680, and 32GB of RAM, while the Windows version baseline is 270.6 FPS. Valve was using the 32-bit version of Ubuntu 12.04, however it plans to switch to 64-bit before long. The Windows version used was Windows 7 SP1 64-bit, which uses Direct3D compared to Linux's OpenGL.

The developer was able to modify L4D2 to work better with the Linux kernel and OpenGL, plus it optimized the graphics driver to get the best performance. An interesting sidenote to this was Valve was able to enhance the OpenGL performance in Windows to increase L4D2's FPS to 303.4, which still does not match the Linux version. The studio is still working to improve the Windows performance, so perhaps soon L4D2 and other Source games will run even faster.

The improvements Valve is making will affect the entire Linux community, as it is working closely with AMD, NVIDIA, and Intel to improve graphic driver performance. This should go a long way towards making Linux a viable gaming platform, plus it would not hurt having the entire Steam library available.

It took some time for scientists to accept that light is an electromagnetic phenomenon, but now we know that because it must obey mathematical laws we can make it do unnatural things. Metamaterials are any man-made material that exhibit properties impossible to find in nature, but are normally associated with light as researchers use them to create invisibility cloaks. Now researchers at Harvard University's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have found a new way to create a metamaterial that has quite extreme properties.

Key to the creation of invisibility cloaks is making materials with a negative index of refraction. This means that when light enters the material it bends in the opposite direction one would expect from natural materials. Normally this is achieved in metamaterials via magnetic inductance but the Harvard researchers decided to try using kinetic inductance. The result is a metamaterial with a refractive index of -700 (water's is 1.333) and the ability to squeeze light to ultra-subwavelength sizes. Normally there is a diffraction limit that prevents light from being squeezed to smaller than half its wavelength.

The researchers did this proof-of-concept work with microwaves at 20 K, but believe it can be replicated with terahertz waves at room temperature. Graphene will also be needed at the high temperature as a 2D conductor, instead of a 2D electron gas the microwave design was using. Room temperature operation combined with the ultra-subwavelength scale of the light could allow for advance photonics to be integrated into chips.

Corsair has announced that it was selected by Electronic Arts as its official gaming PC supplier for Gamescom 2012. Corsair will supply 250 PCs for game demo stations featuring Corsair components and Vengeance peripherals. Almost the full PC except for the CPU, GPU, and motherboard can be provided by Corsair, as the company has continued to branch out in recent years from its core market of memory. The PCs are being built by German company MIFcom and will feature AMD FX processors, ASUS motherboards, and Sapphire GPUs. Corsair representatives will be on hand to help answer questions and show the latest hardware.

Since the first observation of a quantum mechanical phenomenon, researchers have been trying to determine where the division between quantum and classical mechanics is. Superconductivity, entanglement, superposition, and tunneling are all quantum phenomenon that are could revolutionize many technologies if they could exist at room conditions. Now researchers at Duke University have found a new transition point when studying resonant tunneling that they had not expected.

Tunneling is a means for a particle, like an electron, to skip past a barrier that it cannot overcome. This would be akin to walking through a tunnel in a mountain, instead of climbing over the mountain, with one difference being that the particle never actually exists within the barrier. Resonant tunneling is slightly different as it gives a place for a particle to exist within the barrier, to make the process easier, like a rest stop or gas station. In this case it was a carbon nanotube that served as the stop and the researchers found its position was more important than they thought. Only when the nanotube was exactly in the middle of the barrier did the electrons in the experiment tunnel through the barrier. When the nanotube had a bias to either side, the electrons would not tunnel.

Typically quantum phase transitions require very low temperatures, which can be difficult to obtain. By having the mechanical trigger of just moving the nanotube, this research could lead to new studies concerning where quantum phase transitions are able to occur.

It has barely been a month, but already two high level LucasArts employees have left. The middle of July saw Clint Hocking, former creative director at LucasArts, take a position at Valve and now LucasArts president Paul Meegan has left as well. Meegan had been with LucasArts since 2010, where he oversaw the launch of LEGO Star Wars III and the reveal of Star Wars 1313. The studio announced all production on current titles will stay on track, but still it is odd to have two high level employees leave in such a short time. LucasArts has yet to name a replacement for Meegan, but said Kevin Parker and Gio Corsi have stepped up to co-lead for the time being. Parker will oversee the business operations while Corsi will focus on game production.

Meegan thanked everyone at LucasArts for having the opportunity to work there and said there are other exciting projects in the works, with the big one being Star Wars 1313. He did not reveal exactly where he will be landing next, but I cannot imagine Meegan will be looking for work for very long. Meegan previously worked for Epic Games China and Ubisoft.

In particle physics there are different families of particles including bosons and fermions. Bosons, like photons, can coexist at the same point without issue, but fermions, like electrons, protons, and neutrons, are forbidden from such an existence. It is also not uncommon for bosons to be their own antiparticle, but fermions often have separate antiparticles (positron, anti-proton, and anti-neutron, for example) and a collision between these and the normal-matter counterpart results in a flash of energy. Majorana fermions, first described in 1937, however are a class of fermions that are their own anti-particles but do not annihilate upon colliding.

This unique stability has had researchers searching for these particles for some time, but so far they have not been discovered. Researchers at Dartmouth College believe they have found another environment these particles could appear at; a topological superconductor. Topological superconductors, like topological insulators, have different electrical properties between their surface and interior, but in this case the surface is a conductor while the interior is a superconductor. According to the researchers' prediction, Majorana fermions could exist either on the surface or at the interface between the outer surface and the interior.

The stability of Majorana fermions makes them very interesting to researchers working on quantum computers as a building block. They also could help explain phenomena such as superconductivity, which they are often linked to in theories, including this one.

Voice casts for video games have certainly changed over the years. Sure, there are some famous voice actors like Nolan North, but major Hollywood actors and actresses do not always lend their voices to a game. However, that has seemingly gone out the window of late, especially for Bethesda productions. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrimfeatures several Academy Award nominees like Christopher Plummer, Max Von Sydow, and Joan Allen, and now Dishonored can say the same. Bethesda revealed the voice cast for Arkane Studios' Dishonored today during QuakeCon, and the names on the list are extremely impressive. Academy Award winner and five-time nominee Susan Sarandon ("Thelma & Louise"), Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner Brad Dourif ("The Lord of the Rings" trilogy), Emmy Award nominees Carrie Fisher (original "Star Wars" saga) and John Slattery ("Mad Men"), Michael Madsen ("Resevoir Dogs"), Lena Headey ("Game of Thrones"), and more lend their talents to Dishonored.

Susan Saradon voices Granny Rags, an old blind woman who has gone crazy after living on the street. Brad Dourif takes on the role of the inventor Piero, who creates protagonist Corvo's iconic mask, and Carrie Fisher can be heard spreading propaganda over loudspeakers throughout Dunwall. John Slattery voices Admiral Havelock, a Loyalist who helps Corvo on his quest, and Michael Madsen assumes the role of the mysterious assassin Daud. Chloë Grace Moretz ("Kick-Ass") plays the role of Young Lady Emily, the daughter of the Empress who is kidnapped after her mother's death, while Lean Headey voices Calista, Emily's caretaker.

Music for Dishonored is being handled by composer Daniel Licht ("Dexter"), who should set a wonderful mood for the game. The voice cast and composer for Dishonored is certainly impressive, and we only have to wait until October 8th to hear everything come together and pull us into the game's virtual world.

Electronic Arts has announced that it has filed a lawsuit against Zynga over copyright laws. The lawsuit is the result of the Zynga game The Ville, which EA feels is too similar to The Sims Social, developed by Maxis. This isn't the first time that Zynga has been accused of copying ideas when developing its games, but this time it may have picked the wrong company to copy from. Maxis released a statement regarding the matter, "This is a case of principle. Maxis isn't the first studio to claim that Zynga copied its creative product. But we are the studio that has the financial and corporate resources to stand up and do something about it." Reggie Davis, general counsel for Zynga, has released a statement in response, "It's also ironic that EA brings this suit shortly after launching SimCity Social which bears an uncanny resemblance to Zynga's CityVille game." It will be interesting to see how this plays out as most companies that have accused Zynga of copyright infringement in the past have been small developers, while EA is one of the biggest companies in the industry.

Once more humanity has reached out and set something on another body in the Solar System. The Mars Science Laboratory, or Curiosity, is the bigger cousin of the well-known rovers Pathfinder, Spirit, and Opportunity, of which only Opportunity is still functioning (despite having surpassed day 3000 of its 90 day mission).

At approximately one ton and the size of an SUV, Curiosity is a giant compared to the other rovers, but it has a great deal to show for its weight. With more equipment onboard for research and a thermoelectric radioisotope generator this rover should be able to do far more than the others, including survive the Martian Winters when it gets too cold and dark for solar panels to provide enough power to operate. It also will be communicating directly with Earth, instead of using one of the orbiting satellites to relay transmissions between the two planets.

Being so large, the engineers at NASA had to be very careful when designing how Curiosity would land on Mars, which they ultimately decided would utilize rockets like the Viking and Phoenix landers before it. The other rovers used an airbag system that allowed them to bounce on the surface before coming to a stop.

Only time will tell what Curiosity will find as it explores our planetary neighbor, but while it is the giant among them, it will discover what it can because it is standing upon those missions that came before it.

Update: The attached images are the first image received from the rover. The first is the original thumbnail that was received while the second is the larger version of the image. The third image here is from the opposite-facing camera and shows the shadow of Curiosity on Mars. In both larger images you can see dust on the lens cover. This dust was kicked up by the rockets used in the landing process.

QuakeCon has wrapped up its festivities, but there was some good information to come from it. The big one was the subdued PC release of Dawnguard for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and now another piece of news has appeared. During his keynote speech that covered a little bit of everything, John Carmack confirmed id Software closed down the mobile part of its business in order to better focus on DOOM IV. Carmack said shuttering the mobile side was tough because he loves that kind of work, but went on to say the move was necessary in order to bring some of those developers on to DOOM IV. The engineering mastermind hopes to return to mobile development at a later date, however the main focus right now is AAA titles, like the aforementioned title. Id Software does have an iOS game that is finished, however Carmack would not say its name.

Carmack would not comment on a release date for the horror sequel other than to say it "will be done when it's done." He did hope to get DOOM on a more consistent release schedule instead of once a decade, which would be nice to see. Still, at least work is progressing on DOOM IV, even if there is radio silence on just how far along it is and when we can expect to fear the dark.

If you are interested, John Carmack's entire keynote speech is below. It does go a little over three and a half hours, plus Carmack was feeling under the weather, but it is an impressive speech that everyone should listen to at some point.

We get the week started with some Quakecon 2012 coverage articles for you to check out. We have an Intel motherboard, DZ77GA-70K, an LGA 1155 board based on the z77 Express chipset in the mix today along with another review covering the Corsair 550D Obsidian mid-tower case. That's not all as we also have reviews on the Samsung MV-3V4G3D DDR3-1600 8GB memory kit, the MSI R7870 HAWK Edition video card and more.

There are several mysteries surrounding the wonder material, graphene. This atom-thick sheet of carbon is extremely strong, flexible, and conductive, which makes it a prime material for electronics. Exactly how it is such a good conductor is still being debated, but researchers at Berkeley Lab and the University of California, Berkeley have recently made some important observations.

It has already been determined that part of the reason graphene conducts electricity so fell is because the electrons behave as though they are massless. This enables them to reach relativistic speeds that are unobtainable in other materials. What the recent research determined though is how the relativistic electrons interact. Some theories suggest the electrons do not react with each other to achieve this conductivity while others suggest electron-electron interactions are required. By inserting a charge impurity into the graphene, the researchers were able to confirm the electron-electron interactions do occur and are required.

Information like this will be critical for the development of electronic technology based on graphene. It allows researchers to know how strongly charge impurities affect electrons traveling on graphene, and thus how critical it is to avoid the impurities, or to implant them for new technologies.

An all-electric version of the Long-ESA Aircraft now holds the title as the world's fastest electric plane, with a maximum speed of 202.6 MPH. Courtesy of Chip Yates, this maverick has also broken the record of the world's fastest electric motorcyle from his previous speed project. Dubbed as Flight of the Century, the electric plane piloted by Yates soared over the Mojave Desert after taking off from Inyokern Airport. Keen to push the limits of long range electric flight technology even further, Yates' team is also hoping to construct an electric aircraft with enough power to complete a 3,600 mile journey from New York to Paris. That's a target for 2014, although Yates wants to also wants to reach a top speed of 250 MPH with a future model. For the meantime, Yates is prepping the electric plane for a non-stop trans-Atlantic flight starting from Wisconsin scheduled next week.

With the whole of the Universe to look at, a fair amount of astronomy is just luck and many were very lucky in March of last year. At that time a flash of light was observed that originally was just believed to be a gamma-ray burst; a not uncommon cosmic event. However this flash of X-rays survived longer than a gamma-ray burst, so researchers took a closer look and found a truly rare event.

Now called Swift J1644+57, the X-ray source was actually a star being destroyed by a previously quiet supermassive black hole, some 3.9 billion light years away. When the unfortunate star passed by the black hole it was ripped apart a much of its mass fell into an accretion disk. This disk spins around the black hole like the rings around Saturn, and as long as the matter does not cross the Innermost Stable Circular Orbit (ISCO), it will not fall in. The large flash the observatories detected was matter from the star crossing that threshold but not falling into the black hole. Instead it was ejected out in large jets, and one of them just happened to be point at Earth.

Thanks to relativity, the light from the jet was able to survive the trip to Earth, but that theory is not through with Swift J1644+57 just yet. Within the ISCO is the Quasi-Periodic Oscillation (QPO) which is created by the superhot matter still skirting the event horizon of the black hole. Researchers are able to study the flashes of the QPO to learn about the physics at this extreme environment, which also happens to be at a time when the Universe is different from our own.

World of Warcraft is one of the most popular MMORPGs currently available. The game peaked at 12 million subscribers in October 2010, but has been heading in a downhill direction since then. A small decrease is something that can probably be expected and not indicative of trouble, but the last three months have been the worst the game has seen. The game is down one million subscribers over that time period, down by three million from the peak to nine million subscribers. President of Blizzard Mike Morhaime wasn't worried when asked about it, claiming that gamers were "taking a break" and that they would be back when the next WoW expansion, Mists of Pandaria, releases in September.

Advances in technology and our understanding of physics have been allowing microelectronics to reach incredibly small sizes as fewer and fewer atoms are needed for the same devices. While the smaller size allows us to reach higher speeds, it also makes the circuitry more susceptible to defects. Researchers at Vanderbilt University developed a new way to study these defects and how radiation interacts with them. Unfortunately, the results are not encouraging.

In essence, the researchers developed a sonar system, similar to that energy companies use to find oil and coal, but instead of explosions to create the sound waves, lasers were used. An ultrafast laser pulse strikes the surface of the semiconductor and creates a pressure wave within the material. This wave is reflected off of the electrons in the material, but the electrons of a defect change the wave. When the wave bounces back to the surface, it affects the reflection of a laser bouncing off of the material's surface, and those minor distortions are enough for a computer to analyze.

The researchers found that a single neon atom defect in a gallium arsenide semiconductor actually affect a thousand of atoms around it. In larger devices that contain millions of atoms, that is hardly noticed, but as newer devices are reaching down to just thousands of atoms, that one atom can cause a lot of problems. If the technology also heads to optoelectronics which use lasers, this issue could be even more profound, but at least now we have a good means to measure and study it.

Today brings two good pieces of news for PlanetSide 2 fans. The first is the beta is now open with invites pouring out, and the second is that PlanetSide 2 will appear on Steam. Sony Online Entertainment president John Smedley tweeted the other day to confirm that PlanetSide 2 will be on Steam, which will surely make plenty of people happy. We will still need a Station account to play, but at least everyone will have access to their Steam friends and in-game overlay while fighting battles. Smedley went on to say that SOE loves Steam and is happy to work with Valve, but will defer to the latter if PlanetSide 2 will add any hats for Team Fortress 2.

The other news concerns the beta, which has the first wave of invites going out today. Current PlanetSide 1 subscribers and All Access members are in that first wave, with former subscribers in the next. People with Priority Access will go in later and then finally opt-in entrants will be chosen. The invites will be sent out over the next two to three weeks, so do not worry if yours has not arrived yet. The PlanetSide 2 is under a non-disclosure agreement, so just keep all discussions to the game's beta forum if you get invited.

Believe it or not, the Source Engine powering all of Valve's games is approaching its ten year anniversary. The engine was designed in a way that allows for updates over the years, so the version powering Portal 2 is superior to the one that originally debuted with Counter-Strike: Source. Even still, an eight year old game engine has to be replaced in favor of something newer at some point in time. It appears that may soon be the case, as the folks over at Valve Time have discovered files for a "next-gen Source 2" engine within the Source Filmmaker. There are more than 60 references hidden in the Filmmaker files, with names like Source, Hybrid, and Source 2 repeated. Valve Time thinks Hybrid is what Source 2 is sitting on as a base, but it could be anything at this point.

Valve does say that "Source is considered the most flexible, comprehensive, and powerful game development environment out there. And it’s about to get even better." That last part could be a major hint that Source 2 is on the way, and maybe this is why Half-Life 2: Episode Three and Half-Life 3 are taking so long. Keep it tuned here for future updates.

THQ is trying to do everything it can to keep afloat. It has already narrowed its focus to several core games and reduced staff, and now a canceled game can be added to the list. THQ president Jason Rubin announced that Guillermo del Toro's inSANE has been canceled and will return the rights to the director. The announcement came during THQ's first quarter fiscal 2013 earnings call, with Rubin saying all pre-production on the game has ceased and del Toro will get its rights back. Del Toro, director of Hellboy and Pan's Labyrinth, should now be free to find another studio to create his game, and hopefully we will finally be able to experience the horror title.

InSANE was originally announced back in 2010 as a trilogy, with Red Faction and Saints Row developer Volition attached to the project. There was no news after the announcement however, up until the cancellation of inSANE. It is sad to see this happen, but perhaps it will help THQ try to right the ship. As for del Toro, I imagine he will not have to talk to too many studios to get his game realized.

Samsung first announced the Galaxy Note 10.1 in February, but decided to go back to the drawing board after hearing what the newest iPad was going to offer. Samsung has announced that it will now be releasing the tablet with an upgraded spec sheet. The tablet will now be powered by an Exynos 4 Quad CPU running at 1.4GHz, a Mali-400MP GPU, and 2GB of RAM. The Galaxy Note doesn't stop there, and it has plenty of other bells and whistles including a 5MP camera, a 1.9MP front camera, GPS, and the choice of Wi-Fi or 3G. The biggest part of the Note that didn't receive an upgrade was the screen, which remains at 1280x800. Samsung hasn't released official prices, but it is rumored that the Wi-Fi model will cost $590 and the 3G model will cost $740.

DayZ is a game that started as a mod for the game Arma II: Combined Operations. We recently reported that the game is nearing 1 million unique players, and there has been further interesting developments regarding the game. The developers have announced that they will be working with Bohemia Interactive to make the mod into a standalone game. Those that purchased Arma II to gain access to the mod shouldn't be worried, as development of the mod will continue in parallel with development of the game. There has been no word on when the game will be available, but expect the alpha version to be heavily discounted. Stay tuned for future developments and answers from the developers.

Today's roundup contains a pair of NAS server reviews on units targeted at the SOHO and individual user segments of the market. First, we have the NETGEAR ReadyNAS NV+ v2 four-bay unit that supports RAID levels 0, 1, 5, and JBOD. Our second review covers the Synology DiskStation DS112+ single-bay NAS designed for those needing high-performance network storage and backup. We also picked up additional Quakecon 2012 coverage as well as a look at the NZXT Hue RGB LED Controller.

The Internet is getting old and is being used to enable things it was not originally designed for. For example, mobile devices like smartphones which can connect via Wi-Fi and a cellular data connection were not envisioned at the time and suffer because of it. When the device switches from one data connection to the other there is an unavoidable blip as it changes IP addresses. Researchers at Princeton University however have developed a new layer for the Internet that should alleviate this and other issues to do with changing IP addresses.

The current design of the Internet relies on IP address to connect any two devices, which are like phone numbers. If you are in the middle of a call though and you have to switch phones (say your cell phone's battery is dying, so you grab a landline) you have to hang up and dial again for the conversation to continue. This is the issue with switching from Wi-Fi to cellular data, but what the researchers have created, called Serval, uses the new Service Access Layer element to identify the service in use without an IP address. Continuing the phone call analogy, what Serval does is connects two people, instead of two phone numbers, so switching from one phone to another does not require re-dialing.

Looking at the backend of the Internet, Serval also allows the connection to a server to be migrated seamlessly, which is valuable as some services use multiple servers with different addresses. Currently the researchers are doing proof-of-service testing but once it is proven it can be deployed to the Internet with minor interference, if any.

Counter-Strike fans can rejoice, as Global Offensive is now available to pre-order on Steam. Valve is offering a 10% discount for all pre-orders, so $13.49 will net you a copy instead of $15. There is no four-pack available at this time, but that could change in a week or so. CS:GO launches on August 21, which gives you a right around two weeks to decide if the newest CS is for you. Pre-ordering does grant you access to the beta on August 14, which should get everyone ready for the new installment. The beta for CS:GO will continue to run up until launch, but next Tuesday brings a massive patch for it. The full details of the patch can be read at the source, but suffice to say everything is receiving a tweak.

The mod turned game that took the gaming world by storm so many years ago has been improved with new maps, characters, weapons, and gameplay modes. We will have to see if Counter-Strike: Global Offensive can do the same. The PlayStation Network and Xbox Live versions will also launch on August 21, but those will be at the full price.

As technology is shifting away from traditional materials and toward polymers we are creating devices with new properties, like flexible displays. Of course a flexible display is not very useful if the components around it are rigid, which is why researchers have been working to develop a flexible battery system. Those at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) have succeeded with a thin-film lithium-ion design, which overcomes challenges that inhibited flexible lithium-ion batteries in the past.

To create a lithium-ion battery, the cathode has to be heated to a temperature too high for a polymer substrate to survive. The KAIST researchers addressed this by first making the battery on a mica substrate, which can survive the high temperatures. Then by simply delaminating the substrate, the thin film battery was transferred to a flexible polymer substrate.

The researchers are now working on a laser lift-off technology that will be useful for mass production of this battery design. Hopefully this design, or others like it, will help bring flexible electronics to the world.

Another day, another game designerjumping to a new studio. This time it is the lead designer of Battlefield 3 moving to a new location, as David Goldfarb has left his position at EA DICE to join Starbreeze Studios in its new Stockholm, Sweden, location. At Starbreeze, Goldfarb will work with creative director Ulf Andersson on a sequel to Payday: The Heist and an unannounced project. Starbreeze acquired Overkill Software in June, which brought Andersson, his team, and Payday under its roof. Goldfarb decided to leave DICE because he felt exhausted working on so many big projects, which he said was four games in five years. Working at Starbreeze will allow Goldfarb to design a title he is personally interested in; something he said "apparently is [a] crime" at other locations. Hopefully Goldfarb will enjoy working with Andersson and the new team, and I am sure many people are eager to see Payday 2 and the other project.